Caught In The Crossfire
by caeciliatheflute
Summary: I'm just an ordinary girl. Well, I mean, I work for SHIELD, but I'm on computers. So why am I the one who has to go after Loki and get him to fall in love with me? Loki x OC.
1. Crossfire

_**I decided to upload something new! *pauses for applause* **__**This is, obviously an Avengers fic, and I'm sure it's been done many times before. It's in a similar universe to BoBT, and I might do a crossover of the two at some point. I haven't cowritten this one, so... Enjoy! Read on!**_

* * *

"Running from the madhouse, they won't take me back, got the medicine to give me what I need! Guess I'm burning up, but music is my drug! Doesn't matter if I shout or if I scream... They're coming for-"

The phone rang, and I shrieked.

I grabbed the phone from its port and looked at the caller ID. "Tasha," I murmured, and quickly answered it.

"MATHILDE GET OVER HERE NOW."

"Natasha-" I started, but she hung up.

That worried me a bit. Natasha Romanoff's picture could have been next to the Russian dictionary's definition of calm, cool, and collected. Even her wild red hair was always flawless, without a flyaway piece to be found. Her green eyes looked into my heart and mind, understanding me better than anyone else. And she sounded panicked. Natasha didn't DO panic.

And then I got it. Something had happened with Clint.

I'd pushed for Clint Barton and Natasha as a couple basically ever since I'd been recruited by SHIELD. Tasha cared about him, but I knew it even before she did... at least, in THAT respect. They were practically a couple, but I still had some matchmaker-type work to do. If something had happened without me, I would KILL Clint. Natasha, no matter how brave she was on a hit, would never in a million years make the first move with Clint. It was interesting, especially for me. I was a little insignificant goldfish to SHIELD, a computer prodigy with a knack for hacking and code cracking. But Tasha was my best friend, and I wouldn't do anything if I might put her or her best interests in danger.

I threw on my least raggedy pair of Converse and sprinted over to Tasha's place. I knocked on the door, and I heard her ragged voice call out, "Mattie?"

"I'm here, Natasha," I assured her, prying open her door with surprising ease. Usually it was locked at least twice. When I got in, the lights were off. If I hadn't had intense in-the-dark training (and enhanced night vision, as was standard procedure for computerists), I wouldn't have been able to see at all. "Tasha, why are the lights off?" I asked the darkness.

"Mattie! Oh my goodness, I'm so glad you're here!" The lights flooded on, and I gasped when I saw her face.

It was pale, paler than normal, and rivers of mascara and eyeliner cascaded down her cheeks. It was obvious that she had been crying, and that was upsetting to me. Natasha Romanoff didn't cry.

"Oh no. Tasha, honey, what's the matter?" I asked her, throwing my arms around her. Even though we were the same height (about 5' 3"), she put her head on my shoulder and sobbed. "Tasha... shh, shh... it's okay... It's gonna be okay," I murmured uselessly. I awkwardly patted her on the back, smoothing down her tangled red hair.

"M-m-m-Mattie," Natasha bawled. "I-it... i-it's Clint."

"No," I gasped. "Nat, what happened? Someone else? Oh my word, tell me now."

Natasha's eyes rolled back into her head, and she went limp in my arms. I dragged her over to the couch and set her down gently, knowing she'd be awake in a second. When she woke up, her eyes were wild. She jumped up and off the couch, landing gracefully (if totally paranoid) on her feet. Then she SWAYED.

"Tasha... have you been drinking?"

She giggled, hiccuping slightly. "What can I say? Vodka is a girl's best friend."

"No, Natasha, I'M your best friend. Vodka is the- NATASHA!"

She sniffed, then the waterworks came again. "He's gone, Mathilde. I don't know what happened... He's GONE."

"Who's gone? Clint? Mein Gott, Natasha, talk to me, sweetheart. What's the matter? TELL ME NOW."

Well, okay, I'm not so great at the reassurance thing. But I was really freaking out. I'd never seen her this drunk. Come to think of it, I'd never seen her DRUNK, period. It sort of scared me. The moods swings were hopefully the worst of it.

"Okay," she sighed. Great fat tears rolled down her makeup-streaked face. "I got a call from Fury about half an hour ago." That made me raise my eyebrows. She'd gotten THIS drunk in only 30 minutes? "He said... Oh, Mattie... He said that some god or something, Thor's brother, had somehow possessed Clint and kidnapped him! He's like, a whole new person, Mathilde. Does he even remember me?"

"Oh, my... Tasha, I'm so sorry." I hugged her again. "What can I do?"

"He stole the Tessaract."

"HE WHAT?!" I yelled.

The Tessaract was an INCREDIBLE source of power for anyone to use, so long as we could figure how to harness it. And we hadn't exactly done that yet.

"But how did he get in?" I asked. This was SHIELD we were talking about.

"Fury didn't say. Hey, Mattie, you want some vodka?"

"No thanks." I frowned. "Nat, did the director say anything else?"

Natasha paused. "Yes. He said he was going to assemble the Avengers."

Mein Gott.

* * *

"I'm glad you could make it, Miss Weber," Nick Fury said to me.

"Thank you, Director Fury," I replied calmly. "I wouldn't miss it, of course."

"I should certainly hope not." Fury gestured to the people sitting around the table. "Allow me to introduce you to the recently formed Avengers."

I nodded.

"This is Steve Rogers. You- or your grandparents- would most likely know him as Captain America."

The good-looking blonde man seated to my left smiled and leaned forward, extending his hand for me to shake. "Nice to meet you, Miss Weber, and I hope you'll ignore the director's jab at my age."

I opened my mouth to ask what, exactly, his age was, but then thought better of it.

"This is Tony Stark." Fury seemed a little exasperated with him, and I knew why.

Stark got up and came over to me, taking my hand. He raised it to his lips and kissed it gently. He lifted his head and his eyes met mine. "I'm Iron Man," he mumbled.

"I know," I told him in the same tone of voice.

"My dear, the whole WORLD probably knows by now." He paused, frowning. "At least, that was the intention."

I rolled my eyes as he made his way back to his chair. Fury cleared his throat.

"And this is Dr. Bruce Banner. He's..."

Dr. Banner smiled wryly. "I'm the not-so-incredible Hulk."

"Umm, really? Because you're not..."

"Eight foot six and green? I'm not always the jolly green giant," he explained with a slight laugh.

"Oh. Right, of course, sorry." I blushed.

"And you already know Natasha," Fury continued.

I nodded again, stealing a glance at my best (and, really, only) friend. "I do."

"Clint would have been here, but under current circumstances..." Fury waved a hand, as if to demonstrate the situation's unpredictability. "He's basically the reason we're all here."

Natasha put a hand over her eyes, as though she was trying to make herself forget what Fury had just said. "Director, could we please just cut to the chase? Clint is gone, and we need to retrieve both him and the Tessaract. It's really quite simple once you analyze it."

"Natasha, my dear," Dr. Banner said lightly, "I don't think... And I say this as a scientist. I don't think 'simple' and 'analyze' go together well in the same sentence."

Tasha began to laugh. She laughed so hard, for so long, that everyone stopped and stared at her.

"I think this whole thing has sort of... broken Nat," I mumbled to Fury. "In my professional opinion."

"And in my own opinion, which is admittedly a bit more professional than yours, Miss Weber, I completely agree," Fury replied. Louder, he commanded, "Agent Romanoff, control yourself!"

Natasha immediately stopped laughing. "Yes, sir."

Fury sighed. "Okay, people, we need to do basically anything short of killing Loki's entire army just to get Clint and the cube." My brain latched onto the new name. Loki. It sounded exotic, intriguing-

I stopped myself. Hadn't this... this ALIEN kidnapped one of my best friends? Actually, Clint and I weren't really as close as Nat and I were, but I still cared about the guy. A lot.

"Ideas would be greatly appreciated." When no one said anything, he looked around at all of us. "Nothing?"

Natasha cleared her throat. "Well, I had an idea... But it's risky."

"By all means, Natasha, tell us!" I cried. "Everything we do here is risky!"

"That's true." Natasha didn't meet my eyes. "But... Isn't Loki going to Germany?"

Okay. Not sure how that mattered.

"That's what it looks like, yes. Stuttgart," Steve supplied. He didn't look very fond of Germany, and I could see why. After all, the guy had fought against the Germans in World War II.

"And... our good friend Mathilde over here is from Germany," Natasha finished quietly.

"I was born there, raised here," I clarified quickly, feeling my cheeks heat up as Steve turned his tense gaze from the table to my face. "I haven't been there in years." I whipped my head around, glaring at Natasha. "Why?" Then it hit me. "No. No, no no no no no. NO WAY."

"Do you have a better idea?" she replied scathingly. She hadn't gone all master-assassin on me since she first recruited me to SHIELD years ago. I recoiled slightly, hurt.

"No," I admitted quietly.

Fury looked from Natasha to me and back again. "Would one of you PLEASE tell me what the heck is going on here?" he demanded.

I glared at Natasha, and she ignored me. "I propose, Director, that we send Mathilde to Germany."

Fury raised an eyebrow. "And then what?"

"And then she... well... And then she somehow seduces Loki, convinces him to take her with him to wherever he has Clint and the Tessaract. Kills two birds with one stone."

"Isn't seduction sort of your thing?" Tony asked. Natasha shot him a glare, and he held up his hands in surrender. "That's what I've heard."

"Well, then, yes. It is. But... Clint may well have told Loki about me. He'll be expecting me. And let's face it," she added with a fleeting glance at me, "no one will be expecting a computer girl to become a god's mistress."

"Whoa, wait, hold up!" I yelled, alarmed. "Where do you get the 'mistress' bit? I'm NOT even going to CONSIDER that- This is just- DIRECTOR!" I pleaded. "You aren't actually willing to go through with this, a-are you?"

Fury's eyes raked my face, studying me. "Actually, I don't think it's such a bad idea. Miss Weber, what are your objections?"

"My OBJECTIONS?!" I shrieked. "Haven't you been listening to me? It's WAY too dangerous! Not to mention that I AM NOT WILLING TO BE THE PLAYTHING OF SOME ALIEN GOD!"

The director sighed. "Miss Weber, I'm afraid this mission is bigger than just you as an individual."

"I know that!" I protested. "But-"

"Let me ask you something."

I nodded silently, crossing my arms over my chest.

"Was it your choice to sign on with us?"

I nodded again.

"Mathilde..." I realized that it was the first time he'd called me by my first name, and that more than anything alerted me to the importance of his words. "We need you, whether or not you're willing to accept that."

"I..." I tried to come up with something, anything, to get me out of this slowly spiraling situation. "What about-?"

"Mathilde, trust me when I say that you are the ONLY person to whom I would entrust this task."

I was flattered, but still wary. "What..." I whispered, stopped, and tried again. "What if I mess up?"

"You won't."

Natasha looked at me knowingly. "Director, she means if she starts to have real feelings for Loki."

I felt grateful to Nat, but also annoyed.

"Ah." Fury sounded regretful of the clarification. "Right. Don't think of him as a person, Miss Weber. He's a monster, an alien, like you said. He's not human, so don't make the mistake of seeing him as such."

I nodded wordlessly. This was really happening.

I was going to die.

"I vote she have a codename," Banner spoke up. When everyone turned to look at him, he explained, "That way if we need to contact her, we don't need to call out her name."

Tony muttered something to Steve about calling out names that made the supersoldier's face turn red. I glared at the billionaire in disgust and he shrugged, a grin spreading across his face.

"Like Black Widow, you mean," Fury said, and Dr. Banner nodded.

"Crossfire," Natasha suggested.

I threw my hands in the air in exasperation. "Sure! Why not?!"

"Crossfire it is," Fury noted. I sighed.

I shook hands with the director, feeling rather unfortunately like it was the last time I would be seeing him. "The best of luck to you," he told me.

"Thanks. You, too."

I followed Natasha out of the room.

* * *

_**In which Natasha drinks and Mattie is a little too German for Steve's taste. *flail*  
Thank you for reading! Please review!  
**_


	2. Stuttgart

**_I have another chapter! I swear!_**

* * *

"Nat, can I talk to you for a sec?"

She smiled. "Of course, Mattie. What's the matter?"

We'd reached her office, and I immediately threw myself into one of her fancy office chairs that were always comforting to me despite their uncomfortable black leather appearance. "I can't do this."

"Don't start, Mathilde," she warned me.

I ignored her and continued talking. "I mean, I have NO self-defense training, no real street smarts... What do I have? A brain, sure, but nothing to match this guy." I threw my hands in the air in exasperation. "He could be telepathic for all I know!"

"He's not telepathic," Natasha replied calmly.

"How do you know? You've never met the guy!"

Natasha gave me what I called her Russian breakdown stare. When she used it on some guy when she was working, he'd start talking in five minutes. Three if she had a gun. With me, it didn't have much effect, for some reason. I wasn't sure about the gun part, though, seeing as she'd never pulled a gun on me. That would totally ruin a friendship, don't you think?

"Tasha," I said to her, "you know that doesn't work on me."

"I was hoping that had changed." Natasha sighed and looked at me with a sappy smile on her face (or at least an expression similar to that of someone meeting their college roommate's new baby, for example, which was about the sappiest Nat got).

I eyed her warily. "What...?"

She laughed, shaking her head. "I'm just so proud of you, Mattie. I mean..." Her smile became more like the one I knew so well: wicked. "Crossfire."

"Where did you even come up with that?" I groaned.

"I don't know." She waved her hands around like she always did when she was searching for an intangible explanation. "It suits you. It's flashy, impressive, not as common as your real name."

"I like my name," I answered defensively.

She shrugged. "Whatever. Forget it."

"What? WHAT, Natasha?"

"Mathilde, you know I love you. You do know that, don't you?"

I frowned. "Yes, of course. Why?"

She bit her lip and looked at me with that contemplating stare of hers.

"Nat, can you not look into my soul right now? I've had kind of a weird day."

She laughed like she always did when I said something she found "cute and American" (her words, not mine). "Oh, Mattie. Are you sure you're ready for this?"

"Ready for it?!" I cried. "I didn't exactly sign up for the job! YOU volunteered my services, if I remember correctly!"

She shrugged. "True."

"I mean... Mein Gott, Tasha, I can't DO this!" I put my head in my hands. "I can't do this."

"Yes you can!" She bent her knees and lowered herself to my eye level. "I KNOW you can. You just need to believe in yourself."

I shook my head. "I need to do a heck of a lot more than that." I stood up suddenly, and so did Natasha. "Do you think you could teach me?"

"TEACH you? I mean, that's..." She smiled. "That means a lot to me. Of course I can teach you!"

"Yeah, okay. It means a lot to you for you to teach me your ways of seduction?"

She gave me a slightly more chastising version of the Russian breakdown stare.

"Sorry. Um, could we get started? We're running out of time here."

"Right, of course." She tucked a nonexistent stray piece of hair behind her ear. "First off, you walk how?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Like this?" I got up and walked in a straight line across her office floor. "Or do you mean like _this_?" I started to sashay a bit more, swaying my hips.

"No. No, no, no. Like THIS, Mathilde." Natasha got up and walked, her black stiletto heels clicking on the hard floor. I rolled my eyes.

"Nat, that doesn't count."

"And might I ask why _not_?" she replied.

"Because you're pretty. I'm _not_. Therefore, my sashay will not be as effective as yours."

Natasha strode back up to me until we were face-to-face, then slapped me.

"TASHA!" I shrieked.

She seemed livid, and I shrunk back.

"Get this into your head, Weber, because I'm only going to say this once," she snapped. "You ARE beautiful, and the sooner you realize it the sooner you'll be able to complete this mission. And by the way, you might want to hurry up and realize it, because that mission starts NOW!"

I jumped when she shouted "NOW!" Her voice was certainly scary when she wanted it to be. She muttered a few curses in Russian, then hugged me. "Now try the walk again," she whispered in my ear.

"You're crazy," I muttered, but I did anyway, attempting to imitate what my best friend had done earlier.

"No, no. See, here's what you have to do..."

* * *

For the rest of the time we had (which was only about two hours), Tasha taught me how to flirt, smile, walk, sit, talk, and argue. She even taught me some more Russian (she'd been trying to teach me for basically five years, since we'd met), mostly codes and things that she thought I might need in case of an emergency. Then we got in the plane/jet (Natasha piloted it, and Steve and I sat in the back and made nice) and we flew to Stuttgart.

I hadn't been to Stuttgart in years. I wasn't totally lying to Steve when I said I only lived a short time in Germany when I was a small child. However, when I was twelve, my family decided to move back to Germany. I lived there for six years, and then when I was eighteen, I met Natasha and Clint.

Apparently there was a drug dealer or someone they were trying to catch. I don't know; I've never heard the full story. I got in their way somehow (it was an accident!), and they hated me for a while, but then they realized my computer smarts. I was always a bit of a prodigy when it came to technology; I loved the stuff. And once Clint and Natasha found THAT one out... well, the rest is history. I joined the SHIELD team and became exactly the person I'd always dreamed of being: a professional computer hacker.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Hacking is bad and against the law, yadda yadda yadda. Not so in Germany, though.

Hahahahaha... I'm kidding. KIDDING. Seriously, it's one of those things I'm supposed to tell you not to try at home, kiddies. But I'm good at it. If you must know, the only way I met Clint and Natasha was the slight complication I caused them... by hacking into their SHIELD-issued devices. I didn't know they were spies. I was bored, so I pickpocketed Tasha's phone (I'm still surprised, even five years later, that she didn't notice immediately) and plugged it into my doctored laptop. It was the surprise of my life when I saw that it wasn't just a phone; it was a tracking device that didn't use GPS, a cache for small items like lock picks, and a lot of other stuff. Unfortunately, the tracking device part meant that I found myself knocked out and tied up before I even had the chance to cry uncle.

They gave me the spiel once I was conscious.

Who was I? What was my name? Mathilde, I told them. Mathilde A. Weber.

How old was I? I was eighteen, and I told them as much.

Where were my parents, my siblings? My parents were dead, I replied, killed in a grocery store robbery. My only brother, Derek, was twenty, and I hadn't seen him since he moved in with his girlfriend last week. He and Lorelei were planning to get married one day, but they couldn't yet afford it.

How much of Nat's information had I seen? Not a lot, I answered, and I understood even less.

Then they inspected my laptop. I remember exactly what Clint said when he saw it: "Holy cow." He mumbled something under his breath about Frankenstein, and I laughed.

I bought superior computer parts and put them into my inferior computer. People didn't expect my cheap, outdated, clunky laptop to run as well as it did. But it did run well, better even than the computers I'd gutted to update mine. And I used it to entertain myself whenever I was bored... by hacking information from random, unsuspecting victims. But Natasha is not a victim. Not of me, not of anyone else.

They ended up taking me back to the States with them (it was quite convenient that I had dual citizenship in both Germany and the US), and SHIELD quickly employed me. I have two savings accounts: one for me, and one for Derek and Lorelei. I was going to bring them to the US and give them enough money to find a home. It was slow going, but SHIELD payed well and I was almost there.

Thinking about Derek made me homesick. There was a knot in my stomach; for the first time in five years, I was going to be in Germany, and I wouldn't get to see the only member of my family I had left.

I sat across from Steve, who wouldn't look at me. Instead, he was polishing his spotless shield.

"You're German, then?"

I looked up at him, surprised. "Yes."

He met my eyes for a half second, then looked back down at his shield.

"Is that a problem?"

"No, no," he replied, though his voice was emotionless. It was a problem for him, I could tell.

"I get that you probably fought against my grandparents in the war and all, but I'm just as American as you are. I mean, you look like the stereotypical German. Blonde hair, blue eyes. Same as me."

He looked up angrily. "I'm Irish," he said in his stiffly dignified voice.

"Oh." I bit my lip. "Sorry."

He shook his head. "Listen to me. I'm still holding a seventy-year-old grudge. I should be the one apologizing to you, Miss Weber."

I smiled. "You can call me Mattie."

"I'll do that." He toyed with his shield, turning it pensively in his hands. "Do you have a favorite movie?"

I shrugged. "Not really. Do you?"

"Tony showed me Disney."

I gasped in delight. "Really?!"

"I mean..." He blushed. "I saw Snow White when it came out. But I hadn't seen the others. I spent an entire day watching princesses' dreams come true. When I should have been working out," he added under his breath.

I laughed. "Oh, yeah, sure. Trust me, you're buff enough already."

I blushed. _Oh my gosh, Mattie, what made you say that?! _I cursed myself. He smiled shyly and looked away.

Looking down at my lap, I couldn't help but admire the silky fabric of the dress Nat had picked out for me. It was soft, probably silk, and orange, with a sheer yellow slash and only one sleeve (which was more of a strap than a sleeve). My thick blonde hair was waved and around my shoulders, and for the first time in almost a year, I was wearing makeup. Lots of makeup: dark plum eyeliner, black mascara, eyeshadow, lipstick, foundation, concealer... the whole shebang. I didn't look like myself, but that was okay with me. If I were recognized, the entire mission would be compromised, and it would be my fault.

I would not let that happen.

"Mathilde, ready to go?" Natasha asked, looking over her shoulder at me as she piloted the Quinjet.

I took a deep breath and stood.

"Ready."

* * *

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